


In Memoriam

by watanuki_sama



Series: Steeped In Sin [8]
Category: Common Law (TV)
Genre: Consent Issues, Demon!Wes AU, M/M, Minor Character Death, Possession, Rape elements, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 21:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11494878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watanuki_sama/pseuds/watanuki_sama
Summary: Wes stares at his partner in the hospital bed and swallows hard. “I’m a demon. I don’t fix things, I just destroy them.”





	In Memoriam

**Author's Note:**

> This fic vaguely references Trust Fall, part 5 of the series. If you haven’t read that one yet, you should definitely check it out, but it’s not needed to understand this fic.
> 
>  
> 
> Also posted on FF.net under the penname 'EFAW' on 07.13.17.

_“Some things are better left buried and forgotten.”_  
_—Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall_

\---

It takes weeks to claw his way out of Hell, fighting for every inch gained. Luckily, the time difference between planes means that by the time he opens his eyes in a drawer in the morgue, he figures only three, maybe four days have elapsed topside.

Wes pushes the door open from the inside, pulling himself out. Jonelle starts, almost dropping the tray in her hands, then relaxes once she sees who it is.

“You know,” she drawls as he sits up, “I should start charging you rent, with how often you spend in there.”

“Haha,” he deadpans, climbing off the drawer. Not ashamed in the slightest of his nudity, he looks around. “Where are my clothes?”

“Over here.” The ME sets the tray down and crosses the room, pulling open a drawer at her desk. “A couple of tourists found your body outside of the city. What happened?”

Wes takes the clothes, wincing at a few very noticeable stains on the cloth. “Couple of hunters ambushed me outside a bar. They didn’t believe me when I said I was a cop, and the next thing I know I’ve been exorcised.” He pulls a face. “I hate getting exorcised.”

“I’ll bet.” Jonelle turns to her desk again. “I’ll call up, let them know you’re awake. You get dressed.”

Wes grabs his clothes as she picks up the phone and retreats into the back room.

\---

When he comes out, Captain Sutton is there. Travis is not.

“Where’s Travis?” Wes asks, tugging his sleeve down. It isn’t like he expected Travis to give him a big old hug when he saw Wes, but Wes (sort of) just came back from the dead, again. The least Travis can do is show up.

“Wes,” the captain says, in a tone that promises nothing good. “I want you to stay calm.”

He looks over, really notices the expression on his captain’s face, and feels something inside him twang threateningly.

“Captain,” he says slowly, low and dangerous. “Where’s Travis?”

“Wes,” Sutton says, hands out, “I need you to stay calm—”

“Where. Is. My. _Partner?”_ Wes hisses, and there’s something—something in the way he tilts his head, arches his back, splays his hands on the exam table, that makes Jonelle flinch in the corner of his eye, makes the captain take half a step back. He ignores both of their reactions, doesn’t bother to censor himself as he leans forward and glares at Sutton with inky eyes he doesn’t try to hide. “Where _is he?!”_

Sutton sighs, slowly lowers his hands. “Come with me,” he orders, turning to the doors. “You’re not going to like it.”

\---

The captain’s right. Wes doesn’t like it at all.

The video is from a high-def security camera. There’s no grain or fuzziness that would allow him to deny what he’s seeing.

There’s just a perfect-quality image of Travis, two bodies at his feet and his hands around a teenage girl’s throat.

“That’s not Travis,” Wes says, forcing calm so all his instincts don’t rise up. He can feel them bubbling, churning under the surface, but if he lets them loose he’ll be little help.

There’s a time and a place for losing control, but not yet. Not yet.

“We know that.” Sutton speeds the tape up for a few seconds, then pauses again.

Travis grins up at the camera, lips pulled back in a shark-liked parody of a smile.

His eyes are black as pitch.

Something snaps in Wes’s hands. Possibly a pen, possibly the chair. He’s not paying enough attention to care.

“What happened?” he snarls, fire burning in his words. 

“I need you to stay calm, Wes…”

“I _am_ calm. I’m perfectly calm. _What happened?”_

Sutton sighs and leans forward. “We’re not sure. The day after you were brought in, he didn’t show up for work. I sent a uniform over to his place. It was trashed, and there was a body, a biker from Arizona.”

“Sulfur, too,” Wes says, keeping his voice level. It’s confirmation, not a question.

The captain nods. “That’s what made us start looking at homicides. An unregistered demon in a brand new body is bound to be causing as much chaos as possible.”

Wes stares at the image on the screen, something unpleasant roiling in his stomach. “How many bodies?”

Sutton is silent a long time, long enough Wes doesn’t think he’s going to answer. But finally he admits, “We’ve had nine bodies in the last four days.”

Wes closes his eyes and has to count to keep the fires inside him from exploding outward.

\---

“We’re doing everything in our power to find him,” Sutton says, which would be reassuring if it wasn’t _his_ partner out there, possessed and being forced to kill people.

The captain takes Wes’s silence as an invitation to continue speaking and not the barely-contained effort to keep his boiling rage in check that it actually is.

“We sent out an email as soon as we realized what happened. Every cop in the city is looking for Travis, with orders to contain on sight.” He takes a breath. “For obvious reasons, we’ve refrained from alerting the hunter community. They aren’t exactly known for their restraint.”

“Good idea,” Wes says through gritted teeth, staring at the board in front of him. Nine bodies in four days and the rotten bastard is using _Travis_ to do it.

Honestly, Wes wouldn’t care too much about the body count if it weren’t for that last fact.

“Do you think it’s related?” Sutton asks on the tail of something Wes wasn’t listening to. “Your exorcism and Travis’s possession?”

“It’s possible,” Wes concedes tightly. If someone wanted to possess Travis, then getting rid of Wes for a few days would be the perfect way to do it. On the other hand, it could be complete coincidence, some demon taking a random body, not knowing his demonic bodyguard had been sent to Hell the day before. He points this out to the captain.

“And if it isn’t coincidence?” Sutton asks.

“Then,” Wes says grimly, “you don’t want to know what I’m going to do.”

Sutton studies his face, mouth a thin, tight line. “No. I really don’t think I do.” He looks back at the board. “Is there anything you can do, now that you’re back?”

Wes has a few ideas. He’s running through them, filtering the ones that aren’t exactly appropriate to say to a superior officer, when a uniform sticks his head in, looking worried and grim.

“We got a call,” he says. It’s all he needs to say.

\---

“Witnesses say Detective Marks jumped on the hood when the car stopped at the light. He punched through the windshield, crushed the driver’s throat, and pulled the passenger out, taking her to god-knows where.”

Wes stares at the cordoned-off car and takes deep breaths.

Amy, who, along with Kate were sent to accompany Wes (i.e. make sure he doesn’t blow off the handle), makes a note. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. They said your guy’s eyes were pitch black. Demon eyes. Like—” The officer hesitates, shifts nervously, then nods reluctantly at Wes.

Wes is wearing sunglasses. Wes is also not bothering to hide what he is, all the little things that give him away. The officer is nervous and looks like he wants to bolt, and even Kate and Amy are fidgeting, resisting the urge to back away. He is inhuman and _wrong_ , and when he doesn’t try to hide it, people can tell, and their little monkey brains can’t handle it. 

Wes doesn’t particularly care right now.

Kate clears her throat significantly.

“My _partner_ is _missing_ ,” Wes hisses through his teeth. “I am _trying_ to keep from _completely_ losing my cool. I’m _sorry_ if I’m not taking the _time_ to be _human_ enough.”

Wisely, she drops the subject.

“Did the witnesses see which way he went?” Amy asks, pen poised over her pad.

“He went east,” the officer reports, pointing down the street. “And before you ask, we tried to follow him with traffic cams, but we lost him after a few blocks.”

“Alright.” Amy makes another note, then snaps her pad shut. “Thank you for your time.”

Wes just continues to stare at the ruined car. It happened less than an hour ago. If he’d been there—

_Someone_ is going to _pay_ for this.

\---

“So what now?” Wes asks.

Kate and Amy share a look. “Well, now that you’re back, we have a few more options open to us,” Amy says.

“We tried asking the local demons when we first realized what happened,” Kate adds, glancing at him in the rearview. “They weren’t too receptive to helping.”

“No, I can imagine they weren’t.” The demons who live topside, who don’t go rampaging and spreading chaos on a whim, still don’t like cops, who are tools of justice meant to contain chaos and pain and all the things demons thrive on.

Wes is back now, so he can ask around, but he doesn’t know that it will make much of a difference. Being the black sheep of the demon community has its drawbacks.

“So, we’ll…” Wes trails off, waiting for one of them to fill in the blanks.

Amy doesn’t disappoint. With a sigh, she says, “All we can do is what we’ve been doing—try to get to him first and hope we make it before any hunters do.”

Wes stares out the window and counts by fives. It doesn’t really help. “I see.”

The car drives for half a block before he says, “That’s not going to work for me.”

Two alarmed gazes turn to him. “Now, Wes,” Amy says, at the same time Kate orders, “Don’t do anything rash—”

Wes vanishes out of the back of the car before he can hear the rest of that sentence.

\---

Kate and Amy are right. Wes has contacts that simple human police don’t. Which is why he’s sitting in a dingy, scummy lawyer’s office on the other side of town. It’s dark and disreputable and exactly the sort of place a bottom feeder would call home.

Said bottom feeder comes through the door, humming to himself and totally oblivious to Wes’s presence. Idiot. Wes picks up a decorative letter opener shaped like a sword, spins it idly between his fingers.

“Hello, Chum.”

The greasy lawyer jumps, eyes going black in defensive surprise. “It’s you!” he squawks, and Wes is gratified to see him blanch a little. “I, um, I didn’t know you’d come back already.”

“Ah.” Wes holds the letter opener up, studying it. “You heard about that, then.”

The demon pales further. “Um, I, uh, I may have heard rumors. You know. Through the grapevine.”

Wes smiles a wicked smile. “And that’s the good thing about you, Chum. You have your ear to the ground.” He turns the letter opener so the light shines off the blade. “You can probably guess why I’m here, right now.”

The demon Wes so affectionately refers to as Chum laughs nervously. “I, um, I may have heard something. Something about your partner.”

“That’s right.” The calm in Wes’s voice is deceptive; inside he’s a boiling inferno, just waiting for an excuse to explode. “My partner is missing. Someone _took_ him. I want to know who, I want to know where, and I want to know _right. Now.”_

Chum puffs up, which is probably the bravest thing he’s ever done. “No way, man. I’m a demon, but I ain’t a _snitch_.”

The letter open makes a nice, heavy _‘thunk’_ when Wes stabs it into the desk. He slowly rises to his feet, and judging by the way Chum flinches, the smile on his face is truly horrible.

“Oh, Chum,” he purrs, slamming the door shut with a flick of his hand before the lower demon can escape. “You’ve caught me in a really bad mood. I was _hoping_ you’d say that.”

\---

“There’s this warehouse, edge of town,” Chum babbles after Wes is through with him. “When he first took your partner, couple of guys were glad, thought you deserved it. Felt you were putting on airs, becoming a cop, so they felt it was just desserts that your partner was possessed. Not me, of course,” he says quickly, “but some other guys.”

Wes waves the letter opener. “Go on.”

Chum swallows. “So these guys, they go to the warehouse. This guy, whoever he is, he’s not hiding. From the cops, the humans, yeah, but not from us. So these guys go, want to say hi, applaud his choice of vessel. Only I guess this guy doesn’t want to make friends, because he smites them. Before they can even say a word, rumor says.”

The demon squirms. “Well, we get the message pretty quick after that. We leave him alone. He doesn’t want to be bothered, we won’t bother him. And we do him a solid and don’t tell the cops when they come sniffing around.”

“I see.” Wes comes over, runs the letter opener under Chum’s chin. “Tell me where the warehouse is,” he whispers. 

Chum does.

\---

To the untrained eye, the warehouse looks completely ordinary, but there’s a perception barrier over it, turning people away with a cheery, _‘Nothing to see here folks’_. Wes can sense underneath it, and all is not well.

He moves cautiously, expecting traps or wards, but there’s nothing. Just the perception barrier to ward off everyone else. The door isn’t even locked.

Wes slips inside, lets his eyes adjust to the gloom and closes his senses against the smell of blood and gore. His demonic nature is already too close to the surface, he doesn’t need to set it off and lose control completely.

Someone inside is sobbing. Wes winds his way through crates stacked high, following the sound. The smell of blood only gets sharper the closer he gets.

In a cleared space at the center of the warehouse is a medical table. Strapped to the surface is a young woman, tears running down her face, covered in blood. And standing over her, blood on his face and a knife in his hands, is—

Wes feels sick. He bites back the rage and steps forward.

“You’ve taken the wrong body,” he says, low and cold.

The demon inside Travis’s skin turns around, a sadistic grin pulling his lips tight. He looks at Wes with blue eyes, _Travis’s_ eyes, and something stings in Wes’s chest to see the insane glee in his partner’s gaze, even though Wes knows that’s not actually Travis looking at him.

“Actually, I don’t think I did,” the demon says.

Recognition dawns, and Wes’s eyes widen. “You…!”

The demon spreads his arms and his grin only gets wider. “Didja miss me?”

\---

“You look surprised.” The demon shrugs. “Well, I can understand. When someone is torn into _that_ many pieces, it’s hard to believe they could _ever_ pull themselves back together again.” He spreads his arms in a ‘ta-dah’ motion. “But here I am.”

Wes clenches his fists, forcing his temper down. “What do you want?” he asks, voice trembling.

The demon shrugs again, nonchalantly strolling around the medical table. The woman has gone quiet; Wes is sure that isn’t a good thing, but he can’t spare a second to check for certain.

“I came to see you.” The demon smiles, and it’s Travis’s smile, the same charming, devil-may-care grin Wes sees on a daily basis. “Imagine my surprise when I made it topside and found out you were slumming with the sheep. _You!”_ He clucks his tongue disapprovingly. “I expected better.”

“This _is_ better,” Wes says softly. The other demons don’t understand, they do the bare minimum to stay on top, but they could be so much _more_. They can be _better_.

Wes is better now than he has been in a long time, and it’s because of Travis and Captain Sutton and Jonelle and everyone else he works with.

With them, he isn’t _just_ a demon. He’s _Wesley Mitchell_. And that’s _so_ much better.

“But I don’t suppose you’ll ever understand that, Johnny boy,” Wes muses.

The demon scoffs. “Got that right.”

Wes takes a breath he doesn’t need. “Well. Now that the pleasantries are all out of the way, I need that human back.”

“Or what, you’ll smite me?” The demon feigns surprise. “Oh wait, you _can’t_ , can you? Because this is your little pet human.” He laughs, a rough, harsh cackle that sounds ugly coming out of Travis’s mouth. “You can’t do _anything_. And _I_ can do _everything_.” He laughs again.

The demon is right, for the most part. There isn’t much Wes can do, not if he wants Travis to walk away in the end.

But… “There’s one thing I can do.”

Travis’s head snaps around, and the demon’s lips curl. “That’s a lie. You can’t do a thing.”

“Am I lying to you right now?” They’d both be able to tell if he’s lying.

The demon’s eyes narrow. “Then you’re bluffing.”

Wes takes a breath, braces himself, and starts speaking. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…”

The demon does a full-body recoil, and Travis’s eyes go black. “You wouldn’t!” he hisses. “No one is that stupid!”

“ _omnis santanica potestas_ …”

“You’ll end up right there with me!” the demon howls. “I’ll drag you down and never let you go!”

It will be worth it. Even if Wes never comes topside again, if it means keeping Travis safe…

“ _infernalis adversarii, omnis legio_ …”

The demon howls, clapping his hands over his ears, but Wes doesn’t stop. He can feel his own body’s tethers fraying, the exorcism working on him the same way it works on Travis’s body, but he isn’t going to stop until the end.

“This isn’t over!” the demon screams. “I’ll be back!”

Travis’s head snaps back, and a cloud of black smoke explodes out towards the ceiling.

Wes stops chanting instantly, rushing forward to catch Travis as he falls. He barely spares a second thought for the fleeing demon, focusing on his partner.

Travis is alive. Barely.

Wes whips out his phone. “I need an ambulance, now!”

\---

Humans don’t like demons. This is a fact. Humans especially don’t like demons in places of healing, such as hospitals; as such, Wes does his damnedest to reign it in, all the little things that mark him as _different_ and _inhuman_.

(“Damnedest,” Travis would say, if he were here, “Was that pun intended? because it was absolutely perfect, man,” and then he’d grin when Wes denied it and say, “Yeah, but I’m not buying it, ‘cuz that totally matches your shitty sense of humor,” and _god_ , Wes aches to have his partner here, healthy and whole and by his side.)

He paces the waiting room, counting his steps by threes, and the captain sits in a hard plastic chair and watches his every step. Wes can’t decide if Sutton is waiting for him to lose his temper and bust through the double doors. He’s not sure what the captain would do if Wes did decide to ignore social conventions and go to where Travis is. He’s half tempted as it is.

But that wouldn’t help his partner at all, so Wes grits his teeth and digs his fingernails into his palms and stomps across the waiting room back and forth as humanly as possible.

It’s six long hours before the doctor comes out. Wes stops pacing instantly, and only the captain’s gentle hand on his arm keeps him from lunging at the poor man.

“How is he?” Sutton asks, fairly calm considering one of his own is in there, on the verge of death. Wes can smell it on the man.

The doctor sighs. “We’ve done all we can, but I’m afraid it doesn’t look good. The demon rode him hard—there’s a lot of damage there we can’t heal.” He holds out his hands. “I’m sorry.”

Wes presses his thumb into his palm and counts to ten. When that doesn’t help, he does it again. In Latin. He can’t trust himself to say anything without exploding. 

Sutton pats his arm, drawing his gaze. “You go see him, sit with him,” he says gently, like he can tell how much Wes needs to do just that. “He’ll need you when he wakes up.”

Wes is infinitely grateful the captain says ‘when’ and not ‘if’.

He swallows hard, forces the inferno in his chest down enough to speak. “What, uh, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll go back to the station,” Sutton says. “Update the gang. Maybe start a prayer circle.” He pats Wes’s arm again. “Go.”

Wes goes.

He isn’t supposed to, the doctors haven’t authorized visitors yet, but Wes is a demon. Nothing can stop him if he doesn’t want it to. (Except a devil’s trap, but he doesn’t encounter any of those, thankfully.)

Travis looks worse now than he did covered in blood in the warehouse. Wires and tubes smother him in every direction, and monitors beep and chirp meaningless data.

Travis’s insides are scorched, burnt out by how hard the demon had pushed him. He’s hanging on by a thread—a lesser man would have died hours ago.

Wes sits in the chair by the bed, pressing his fingertips on the back of his partner’s hand, one of the few spaces of skin not covered in wires or tubes.

“Come on, Travis,” he whispers, more a plea than he’ll ever admit it. “After all this, don’t die on me now.”

There’s nothing he can do except wait. He’s a demon. He can’t fix things.

He can’t help his partner.

\---

“Sir? You really can’t be here.” Something touches his back.

He isn’t thinking. It’s the only excuse he has, later. He isn’t thinking and he’s on edge, so when someone touches him and pulls him out of his doze, he reacts…violently.

The doctor manages only a strangled shout before Wes has him up against the wall, arm across the other man’s throat. He snarls; Wes suspects the doctor’s wide eyes have more to do with Wes’s black ones than the fact that he’s being choked against the wall.

The instant Wes realizes what he’s doing, he releases the doctor, jumping back. With a blink, his eyes go back to cold blue. But it’s too late: the damage is done.

The doctor coughs, rubbing his throat. “You’re a demon?” he questions, and Wes feels a little guilty at the rasp.

He tenses. “Obviously.”

The doctor looks at the hospital bed. “Are you the one who did this?”

Despite himself, Wes’s sclera flash black again at the thought of the scum-sucking vermin who did _this_. “No.” He takes a breath, forces his eyes blue again. “Are you going to call security?”

“That depends.” In one of the bravest moves anyone has done after finding out like this (i.e. violently), the doctor looks Wes straight in the eye. “Were you a demon in the waiting room?”

Wes could lie, but what’s the point? It would just get him kicked out. “Yes.”

The doctor nods thoughtfully. “Then no, I’m not going to call security.” He moves to the bed, checking the machines and making notes in the chart.

Wes resumes his seat, resisting the urge to loom threateningly. “How does he look?”

“It’s not good.” The doctor purses his lips. “He’s hanging in there, but…I’m sorry. It doesn’t look good at all.” He glances at Wes. “Is there anything you can do?”

Wes stares at his partner in the hospital bed and swallows hard. “I’m a demon. I don’t fix things, I just destroy them.”

There isn’t much the doctor can say to that. He finishes the rest of his checks in silence, moving around Wes as necessary. He doesn’t ask Wes to move.

Right before he leaves, he says, “I’ll tell the nurses not to disturb you,” which is kind. And unexpected, all things considered.

Then he’s gone, and Wes is alone with his partner again.

Wes looks down at his hands and laughs bitterly. _Fat lot of use I am._

What’s the point of being a demon if he can’t even do anything worthwhile with it?

\---

The angel _burns_ , the light of the host radiating from its vessel even as it stands in the doorway. Wes is out of his seat and between it and his partner before he can think, a snarl on his lips.

“Mitchell!” Captain Sutton shoves politely past the angel, placating hands held out in Wes’s direction. “It’s alright. She’s here to help. She’s not going to hurt you.”

Which…hadn’t actually been Wes’s first thought, but okay, that’s good to know. He forces himself to relax, turning his eyes to blue again.

“Captain,” he hisses, knowing full well the angel can hear, “What did you _do?”_

“I told you, Mitchell.” Sutton shrugs. “I had a prayer circle.”

“A prayer…oh.” Wes looks at the angel, who is studying Travis. “ _Oh_. Okay.”

Certain Wes isn’t going to launch an attack, Sutton turns to the angel. “Can you help?”

“It will take some time,” the angel says in a bored, indifferent monotone, except Wes knows that’s just how some angels talk. (And it better not be boredom because it’s his partner’s life on the line and Wes won’t hesitate to go after her if she makes light of this, angel or no.) “But I can help.” She turns a bland stare on Wes. “I will not work with the Hellspawn here.”

“Are you kidding? That’s _my_ partner—!”

“Mitchell!” Sutton grabs him, gives him a little shake. “ _Wes!_ She is _here_ to _help!”_

And it gets through, what the captain is saying. She’s here to help Travis. She is, right now, the _only_ thing that can help Travis. And if she won’t work with Wes here, then Wes is the one who has to go.

It galls him. But Wes looks at Travis and reminds himself that this isn’t about _him_ right now.

“Fine,” Wes snaps through gritted teeth. He snatches his jacket from the chair and stomps out the door. “Call me when it’s done.”

\---

Since he’s banished from the hospital for the foreseeable future, Wes goes bar-hopping. Not to get drunk, though he does drink to allay suspicion.

No, he’s on the hunt. Hunting the hunters.

There’s no reason to think the hunters who exorcised him knew what would happen .They were simply doing what they felt was right upon encountering a demon.

Hell, there’s no reason to think the hunters are even still in town. Their usual MO is to split as soon as the job is done. But Wes is angry and he’s looking for someone to blame. The hunters who inadvertently caused this to happen are as good targets as any.

To his luck, he finds them in the third bar he tries, huddled together in a booth in the corner.

Wes smiles around his glass and waits for them to leave.

It takes two and a half hours for the hunters to exit the bar, the big one a little more wobbly than his partner. Wes follows, slipping from shadow to shadow, the deadliest shadow of them all.

The hunters’ truck is parked right beneath a streetlight. Wes huddles behind a parked Honda, anticipation thrumming through his veins as he watches for the perfect moment to strike

The big one leans against the truck and the little one fumbles with the keys and Wes smiles a viper’s grin and crouches down.

His phone rings.

Groaning, Wes checks the display. He’s not surprised to see it’s Sutton, but he is disappointed.

“Lucky day for you,” Wes whispers as the hunters finally climb into their truck. “But don’t think this means you’re off the hook.”

He leaves them, for now, and heads back to the hospital.

\---

“What’s wrong?” is the first thing out of his mouth when he arrives. “Did it not work?”

Sutton looks at him, grim-faced and bleak. “No. It worked.” His gaze goes to the room, through the window to where Travis is sitting up in bed. “It worked great. He’s in perfect health.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Wes demands.

Sutton sighs, makes a gesture towards the door. “You really should see for yourself.”

\---

Travis _looks_ fine, staring out the window. He’s a little quiet, which isn’t something Wes often says of his partner, but Wes figures that’s because of the extenuating circumstances.

And then Travis looks over at him, and something in Wes’s chest clenches painfully.

“You remember,” Wes says—not a question; he can see it in Travis’s eyes, the weight of so many lives on his soul. “That bitch _let_ you remember?” When Wes gets his hands on that angel he’s going to _strangle_ her.

“Wes.”

The fire tamps down in an instant and Wes is there in a heartbeat at Travis’s side. “What do you need, partner?” Anything he can do, anything to make this better, though Wes can’t imagine _anything_ that can make this better.

Travis doesn’t say anything for a long time. Wes waits. Patience is a virtue, but he manages. When Travis finally speaks, his voice is bleak and dead, and it makes Wes’s heart break. (You know, if he had a heart).

“He made me watch,” Travis says softly. He stares at his hands, and his fingers tremble. “I saw them die. I heard them scream.”

“That wasn’t you!” Wes wraps one hand around Travis’s, tries to stop the shaking. “It was the demon that possessed you. It wasn’t _you_.”

“It felt like me.” Travis’s eyes look at his hands but his gaze is turned away, aimed inward. “It was my hands that made them bleed. My mouth that laughed.” He chuckles, and it’s a sound Travis should _never_ be capable of making. “Sometimes it even felt like I enjoyed it.”

“It _wasn’t you_.” Wes grabs Travis’s head, cups his cheeks and looks him straight in the eye. “I know monsters, Travis, and you aren’t capable of that. It _wasn’t you_.”

“Ten people are dead, and I didn’t stop it.” Travis’s voice is little more than a shell of its normal self. “Eleven, if the girl from the warehouse doesn’t make it. And _I did that_.”

“You had no control.” Wes resists the urge to shake his partner. “There was nothing you _could_ do.”

Travis’s gaze snaps into focus so fast it’s dizzying. “Is that what you do?” he hisses, jerking out of Wes’s grasp. “You just take control and do whatever you want, and the poor bastard you’re wearing can’t do anything but watch?”

Wes flinches like he’s been hit with holy water. That Travis would think Wes would… _Yes_ , he’d done that in the beginning, back before he came up with his tremulous morals, but he isn’t doing it _now_.

_He’s angry_ , Wes reminds himself. _He’s angry and violated and lashing out. That’s all. It’s not personal_. It’s just Travis, hurting and trying to make other people hurt too, to make the pain stop.

Wes remembers doing that too, a long time ago.

Wes can relate to that.

“It’s not like that,” he says softly, taking care not to sound even slightly upset. That won’t help. “This soul burned out a long time ago. You know that.”

As quickly as it came, the anger disappears, and Travis deflates. “Yeah,” he says emptily, looking out the window again. “Yeah, I know that.”

Wes prefers the anger to the apathy.

“Travis,” he starts, but his partner cuts him off.

“Can you fix this?”

After a moment, Wes reluctantly admits, “I can’t.”

Travis smiles, and it’s the saddest, most painful thing Wes has ever seen. And Wes has been to Hell.

“I think I’d like to be alone,” Travis says, eyes never leaving the window.

Throat tight, Wes stands and leaves without a word.

\---

“What happened?” Sutton asks, pouncing as soon as Wes is out the door. “Is he alright? Why are you leaving?”

“He doesn’t want me there,” Wes says, and it makes something in his chest go hollow and cold, right behind his sternum where his heart would be, if he had one.

His partner doesn’t want him anymore, because Wes is too close to what happened. Too much of a reminder.

“Don’t leave him alone,” Wes orders, moving past the captain. “Don’t leave him for even a second, no matter what he says.”

“Where are you going?” Sutton calls after him.

Wes doesn’t even look back. “Out.”

\---

He catches up to the beat-up truck on the outskirts of town. This time there’s no lucky phone call to keep the hunters from feeling his wrath.

When he’s done, Wes puts his hands on his hips and looks at the city, glittering in the darkness.

He can’t fix this, that isn’t in his power. But he has an idea.

\---

Travis is asleep when Wes slips into the room. He slides behind Jonelle and puts a hand on her shoulder, making her jump.

“I’ll take over,” Wes whispers.

Jonelle’s eyes go to the figure in the bed, and she nods.

“He fell asleep about an hour ago,” she reports, gathering her stuff. “Lucky for him, he doesn’t seem to be dreaming.”

“Very lucky,” Wes says, eyeing his partner. He does remember, as she’s leaving, to say, “Thanks.”

“Take care of him,” Jonelle says with a nod, shutting the door behind her.

As soon as she’s gone, Wes kicks the end of the bed. “You big faker.”

Travis’s eyes pop open, focusing on Wes. “I got tired of the questions,” he says, sitting up. “How are you doing, how do you feel? Really, how do they _think_ I feel?”

It isn’t good, Wes can see that plain as day. Travis’s eyes are hollow and his voice is empty.

Travis has always been so full of life and energy, and now he’s dead. His body just hasn’t gotten the memo yet.

Slowly, like he’s approaching a scared animal, Wes sits next to Travis. Travis just watches him, and Wes feels another pang.

“It wasn’t your fault, Travis,” he says, one last attempt to make it better.

Travis chuckles bitterly. “Eleven people are dead, Wes, at my hands. It doesn’t matter if I wasn’t driving, I’m still liable.”

Wes nods, sighs. “I’m going to make it better, Travis.”

Not even a spark of life or interest. “You can’t fix this. You said that.”

“No.” Wes cups his partner’s face, tender and gentle. “No, all I can do is break things.” He leans close, lips ghosting over Travis’s. “I’m going to break you, Travis.”

Travis’s eyes widen, mouth opening in a question. Before he can say anything, Wes presses their lips together.

Travis stiffens, making a puzzled noise in his throat, but Wes doesn’t let him go. He doesn’t demand anything, doesn’t force anything, just kisses, and slowly Travis starts to lean in, relaxing into the touch.

_That’s_ when Wes attacks, bubbling out of his body and into Travis’s.

Wes has possessed Travis before, just a few times. It had been uncomfortable on both ends—Travis hadn’t entirely liked it when he couldn’t control his actions, and Wes had had to move so carefully so he didn’t burn his partner up. But no matter how strange or awkward it was, it had always been consensual.

What happened to Travis hadn’t in any way been consensual. He’d been taken and abused, forced to watch while his hands committed atrocities, and it killed him inside. Travis will never be able to live with the memory of what he’d done.

Wes is going to make it better.

He’s going to take away the pain.

The last of him pours into Travis, and his body goes limp as he sinks into his partner.

\---

Travis is screaming.

It’s terror and absolute rejection of what’s happening. It doesn’t matter that it’s Wes, that Wes would never do those sorts of things with Travis. It’s too similar and too much and Travis is screaming and screaming without making a sound.

_Travis, you’re okay,_ Wes tries, but Travis is beyond coherency. Wes isn’t surprised. He was just hoping. This would go easier and faster if Travis is cooperating, but since that’s not possible…

_It’s okay, Travis,_ Wes soothes, as gentle as he can. _It’s going to be okay. Just go to sleep._

A simple thought knocks Travis out, sends him dreaming of (hopefully) better things. His mind still recoils at the invasion, but he’s no longer screaming, so it’s better than nothing. Now Wes can work.

Now comes the hard part.

Demons are not made for finesse. They’re blunt instruments of destruction, hammers that cause havoc wherever they go. But sometimes a hammer is too much; sometimes a scalpel is needed.

Wes hasn’t had much practice being a scalpel, but Travis has always been the exception. He concentrates, and even though it’s painful, he incites the memories, watching Travis’s mind light up like a map.

Wes focuses a sliver of himself into a point, and he starts cutting on the lines.

Slowly, parts of Travis’s mind go dark, connections and neural pathways dying. Apply heat and brain cells wither, and Wes has always had fire inside of him.

It takes over an hour. Wes has to move slowly, or he’ll burn everything in his path, but finally the last spark of memory goes dark and there’s not even a flicker of residual pain or emotion. Travis won’t remember what happened, and unless another angel comes along and heals the damage, he’ll never remember.

It’s all Wes can do. But he still doesn’t know if it’ll be enough.

Wes slips out of Travis and into his own body. He tucks the covers up around Travis’s chin, sinking into the chair. 

All he can do now is watch, and hope.

He would pray, but there’s not an angel out there who would listen to a demon’s prayers.

\---

Travis starts awake as the doctor does his third check of the night. Just in case, Wes leaves the room. If it didn’t work… He passes Jonelle in the hall, but he doesn’t say anything.

She finds him a little while later. “So did you hear?” She sips her coffee, settling easily into the seat next to him, despite his brooding _Go away_ vibes. Without waiting for an answer, she says, “Travis woke up. Doesn’t remember a thing from the last few days. Docs say he must have repressed it all.”

“It’s a miracle,” Wes says dryly.

“Or something from the other side,” Jonelle retorts, equally as dry. She sips her coffee again, and he can feel her studying him. “If we did a CAT scan of Travis’s brain, I wonder what we’d see.”

Damn woman always was too smart for her own good. “I expect you’d see very specific parts of his memory centers burnt out.”

“Hmm. Interesting. Like damage from a demon, perhaps?”

“Could be.”

“I see.” She sips again, watching him. “Luckily, I doubt anyone is going to run a CAT scan. After all, an angel healed him. Why would a demon go and wreck that?”

The corners of his lips curl up, because the other option is to cry and that’s not befitting a demon. “Why indeed?”

She smiles back, and the secret passes between them and stays silent.

After a few minutes, she says, “It’s funny, though, isn’t it? You’re not at all like they say.”

“And what,” Wes questions, “do they say?” He knows full well what they say, he just wants to hear her voice it.

“They say…” Jonelle tilts her head back, searching for the words. “That demons can’t be merciful, or compassionate. That demons can’t be kind.”

Wes coughs around a tight throat. “Keep your voice down. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

“It’s not a bad thing, Wes.” She rests her hand on his shoulder, offering comfort he didn’t ask for (but that he needs). “It’s a very…human thing to do.”

Demons don’t cry, but Wes feels very close to doing just that. “Okay, now you’re just being mean.”

She squeezes his shoulder. “Come on. He was asking for you.”

\---

The first thing he sees is Travis’s smile. A tightness he didn’t realize he was carrying eases out of him.

“Hey buddy. Where’ve you been?”

Wes sits in the chair, grinning, and he doesn’t even have to force it. “I was out cleaning up after your mess.”

“Yeah, about that.” Travis’s brow furrows. “They said I was possessed? But, funny thing, I don’t remember any of it.”

“Oh?” Wes is very good at not letting on; he’s had hundreds of years of practice.

“Yeah. It’s weird, ‘cuz when you possess me, I always know what’s going on, but this time…” Travis shrugs. “Last thing I remember was finding your body in a ditch.”

Wes grimaces. “A ditch?”

Travis grins, all mischief. “A _muddy_ one.” He laughs at the look on Wes’s face. “By the way, how was Hell?”

_Hell was coming back and finding you gone,_ Wes thinks, not betraying a flicker on his face. _Hell was getting you back only to find you dead inside. Hell was climbing inside you and breaking you to make you better._

Wes has spent centuries in Hell, and it was nothing compared to the last twenty-four hours.

He counts to ten, gathers his composure, and clears his throat. “It was balmy.”

Travis laughs again, eyes bright, and Wes has never felt so _good_.

“So, my good man, when do you think they’ll let me go?” Travis wiggles his eyebrows, hands tapping his knees. 

Wes clears his throat again. “I’ll go find out.”

“Bring me back coffee, Wes!” Travis calls as he leaves.

Feeling normal for the first time since he got back, Wes smirks at his partner. “In your dreams.”

Travis laughs, cheery and bright and so full of life, and it’s the most beautiful sound Wes has ever heard.

\---

**Epilogue: Forty-eight hours later**

“You mean I killed _eleven people?”_ Travis stares at the security footage, his own face staring out with eyes black as pitch.

“No,” Wes denies hotly. “The demon hijacking your body killed eleven people. You had no part of it.”

He watches carefully, but aside from a general horror at the gruesome attacks, Travis doesn’t appear to be actually _remembering_ any of it. Good. What Wes had done is holding, then.

Pale-faced, Travis turns to Wes. “You know who this bastard is?”

Wes stares at the paused video, crossing his arms. “He calls himself Crowl.”

“Crowl?” One of Travis’s eyebrows go up. “As in…Crowley?”

“As in, he has aspirations he’s never going to reach.” Wes smirks. “I call him John.”

The other eyebrow rises to meet its mate. “John.”

“You know.” Wes’s smirk turns wicked. “John. Boring, ordinary, _common_ John.”

Travis snorts. “You are something else, Wes.” He shakes he head. “On a side note, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the disappearance of Elijah Thatcher and Douglas Barnum, would you?”

Wes puts on his most innocent, curious face. “Should I?”

“They’re two hunters,” Travis says in an _I don’t buy your innocent act for a minute_ voice. “Their truck was found outside of town, but there’s no sign of them.” He pauses a beat. “They happened to be seen at a bar a few blocks from where your body was found, the night you were exorcised.”

“Is that so?” Wes has had a lot of practice hiding his feelings; his face doesn’t twitch. “What a coincidence. But you know, hunting is such a dangerous job.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure.” Travis’s expression says _We’re SO talking about this later, bud,_ but he drops it. Frowning, he turns back to the video still again. “So what are we going to do about him?”

Wes stares at the image and rage flickers merrily in his chest. “We take precautions. And if he ever shows his face again, we _bury_ him.”

The smile Travis makes is positively demonic. “I _like_ this plan.”

“Me too.” Wes shares his grin, vowing to never _ever_ let Crowl get his hands on Travis again. His fingers itch to tear John Crowl apart. “Me too.”

He can’t wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, teeny tiny SPN implied reference! (Not enough to make this a crossover, though).
> 
> The exorcism Wes starts to recite was taken directly from the Supernatural wiki. But, again, I didn’t feel it was enough of a reference to make this a true crossover. So. Yeah.


End file.
